


If Ever

by suyari



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Ascension Compliant, M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 06:14:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14074692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suyari/pseuds/suyari
Summary: The thing is, Nate is cursed. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it.





	If Ever

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this happened. 
> 
> Spoilers for Pacific Rim Uprising and Pacific Rim Uprising Ascension.

The thing is, Nate is cursed. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. At one time, he may have naively thought otherwise, but the sad fact of it was, people leaving him is the story of his whole damn life. He’d be upset about it, if he weren’t so clearly easily abandoned. He’d add forgotten to that, but drifting with Jake again proved that much, at least wasn’t so. Still, it would have been nice if he could have gotten at least _some_ insight into what had gone so horribly **wrong** between them in the first place. No one would tell him to his face why he was so easy to walk away from, and that more than anything pissed him the fuck off. At the very least, he felt, he was owed an _explanation_. 

Jake wandered into the infirmary with two bowls of ice cream, one heavily ladened with an exorbitant amount of toppings and the other slightly melted, but plain. He didn’t say anything until he’d seated himself on Nate’s bed, their hips resting against one another lightly. Nate would be comforted by the gesture if it _meant_ anything. He was definitely irritated by the fact that it seemed to comfort him anyway, and he shifted uncomfortably beneath his sheets. Jake held up both bowls, one and then the other as if offering Nate a choice, then plopped the one he knew Nate hated the most into his lap, scooping up the plain vanilla ice cream into his mouth and grinning at him as he swallowed. 

Nate heaved a sigh, reaching for the spoon to stir the contents of his bowl. It conveniently gave him something to look at - something _other_ than his on again off again co-pilot. Because he wasn’t looking, Jake’s leaning in to nudge at his arm surprised him enough to look up. He blinked twice, swallowing because...because. 

“I snuck a **brownie** in here just for you and this is the thanks I get?” 

Nate raised a brow, his spoon poised above the mess in his lap. “There’s a _brownie_ in this mess?” he replied incredulous. 

Jake sighed and instead of resting his spoon in his bowl like a normal human being, put it in his mouth, the handle sticking bright and shiny out between his lips, reflecting light as he leaned over and grabbing the spoon from Nate’s hand, began to unbury the contraband. As soon as it was free, he looked up, both eyebrows raising in that smug way of his before he settled back and drew the spoon from his mouth. “There, see? Like I’d eat _boring_ ice cream if I had the choice!” 

“Why _are_ you eating plain ice cream?” Nate asked, taking his spoon back in hand. “You hate it.” 

“Well no one’d believe it if I walked in here with two sundaes,” he replied, leaning back. “So I’ll eat yours and you eat mine and enjoy the damn brownie. Just don’t ask where I got it.” He smiled, before scooping up some more ice cream on his spoon - like it wasn’t something he otherwise chose not to eat - and dropping it into his mouth. 

Nate poked at his brownie. “You smuggled me dessert…” 

“Which I’m going to eat _for_ you if you don’t show proper gratitude and start eating.” 

They ate for a while in silence, every mouthful heavy in Nate’s mouth with reflection and regret and despair. Jake let him stew for a while before sighing heavily. 

“Look, Nate…”

Nate stabbed his brownie. "Thank you. For this.” 

“You’re welcome.” It wasn’t what he wanted to say, that much they were both aware of. Nate could feel it bouncing back and forth between them, the way they used to be able to always tell what the other was thinking, was feeling. He’d had that once, had found a place where he could finally _belong_ and a person whom he’d thought was his soulmate even though he had known better than to romanticize the whole thing. It wasn’t even romantic love, not really. The connection between two people as drift compatible as they were went so far beyond romantic love, it was a damn joke. 

“He’s gonna be alright.” 

“Huh?” 

“Burke,” Jake replied, shifting again. “They’re pretty sure he should be waking up sometime soon.” 

“Oh…” Nate looked down, stabbed his brownie a few more times. He hadn’t thought he could ever have that again. When Jake had left him without even so much as a goodbye after a stupid fight they’d had because they were idiotic teenagers who couldn’t seem to figure out just how to get beyond the almost insane desire to just strip each other down and...they hadn’t entirely been sure _what_ to really do about it, both their hormonal brains too preoccupied with getting to skin. Then they’d fought. Jake had shouted that he didn’t need him, that he’d never needed him, that he’d be better off on his own. He’d stormed out of their quarters and Nate had never seen him again. For nearly a full decade. 

He’d thought himself useless. More useless than the six incompatible drift partners he’d burned through prior to the Marshal taking a chance on him and Jake. Hadn’t known what to do. It hadn’t really ever happened before. And then one day, Mako had taken him aside and introduced him to a kid who towered over him and couldn’t seem to settle into a drift without being overcome with nausea. She’d urged him very gently in her own quiet way to help him out. Nate had agreed, being otherwise at the top of his class, and from the moment they first drifted, he’d known. Had felt more like himself. Whole again, if less orderly, the pieces of his person all jagged and scarred. Burke had come out of their drift with a grin on his face, promptly thrown an arm around Nate and laughed. He’d dragged him close and informed him then and there that they were going to have a very lucrative career together. 

Until earlier in the year when he’d ripped Nate’s heart out and stomped on it. 

It wasn’t like what had happened with Jake. There was no fiery argument, no one stormed out to never see one another again. He’d just simply begun to pull away until their drift echoed with the distorted resonance of too many secrets and not enough trust. In desperation, Nate had appealed to him as his partner and he’d responded; they’d drifted wholly and completely for the first time in months, and Nate still hadn’t recovered. 

“How’re you feeling?” It was tentative, though not entirely a question, as if Jake was unsure if he really wanted - or even _needed_ his answer. 

Nate debated just letting it all out. Keeping it in had never helped after all, but there was a time and a place and he knew they hadn’t quite reached it. “Tired,” he replied, stretching and wincing as his stitches pulled tightly. 

Jake made a noise through his teeth and stood, taking the bowl from Nate’s lap. “I’ll just leave you to rest then, shall I?”

Nate nodded and tried to ignore the part of him that just wanted to grab his co-pilot by the arm and drag him into the bed. To let Jake wrap around him and hold him tight until Nate wasn’t feeling quite so much like he was about to shake and shatter apart all over the floor. Instead, he rolled over and yanked his sheet over his head, listening to Jake leave. He didn’t even pause at the door. 

 

Sometime later - time had a tendency to blur when he wasn’t getting much sleep, his mind far too active and his heart aching and his soul reaching out in search of a ghost drift that no longer existed - Nate found himself startled from his mindless contemplation of the ceiling by the door opening. Burke shifted in the doorway, leaning heavily and Nate sat upright so quickly he ended up folding in on himself in pain. 

Burke made a sound Nate knew accompanied an impressive eye roll and shuffled across the room, the door closing loudly in the silence. His hands shoved at Nate’s shoulders, forcing him to lay back in the bed, before crawling in after him. 

“I can’t even escape your woe in a coma,” he commented, though he dragged Nate close, tugging his head beneath his chin. “Shut up,” he added, just as Nate felt he could respond without embarrassing himself. “We both got our asses beat by Kaiju - and don’t you fucking get smug with me you asshole.”

Nate snorted quietly. 

Burke made himself comfortable and Nate wondered how long it would take the nurses to realize their previously comatose patient had gotten up and walked all the way-- Burke shoved his head back down as he was preparing to protest. 

“No!” Burke scolded. “No, you don’t get to be all high and mighty now. We’re both down for the same reason, and even though I never thought that reason would **be** a reason, Nate...I’m…” Nate could feel him swallow and pressed his face into the skin of his throat, closing his eyes. He’d _always_ believed. It had been what went wrong between them. As stupid a reason as that sounded, co-pilots breaking up because of a _lack_ of Kaiju. “I should have been in there with you,” Burke rasped, words soft but tone harsh. 

Despite how long it’d been since they last drifted, and the rekindling of his drift with Jake, Nate could feel the burn of shame in Burke. Knew he felt he’d failed him deeply. Remembered how they’d once decided that when the time came, they would rather not know what it meant to survive one another. How they’d promised to fight til the end, even if it meant one of them followed the other shortly. They were _Rangers_ and they would die the way they’d been trained to die: In combat. Together.

“I’m sorry you were alone when…” 

Burke shook his head. “It was my own damn fault. Besides, I wasn’t really alone. Plenty of us got taken down before they managed to override the drones.” 

“What…?” 

“Honestly, Nate, I’d need to _show_ you and even then, I’m not sure I…” 

Nate snorted softly and threw an arm across Burke’s chest. “Don’t worry Burke, I’ll protect you from the Kaiju.” 

“I know Nate...I know.” 

 

It shouldn’t feel so awkward. Yet here they were. 

Jake and Burke were sizing each other up. Burke was taller and wider, but Jake was scrappy and used his size to his advantage, Nate knew from experience. It felt oddly like having a pair of exes meet, and Nate’s slightly hysterical mental state managed to point out to him then that it wasn’t exactly far from the truth. 

“So,” Jake said with a hearty sniff, settling his weight back into his hip and crossing his arms. “You’re the reason they hoodwinked me into this to begin with.” 

“The way I hear it, if you’d have just stayed to begin with, none of this would have even been an issue to begin with.” 

Jake tilted his head and Nate could feel his own vertebrae tense. 

Burke rolled his shoulders. “Have to say, Pentecost, I was honestly expecting _more_.” 

“Oh, and what were you expecting?” 

Burke looked Jake up and down, eyes clearly dragging. 

Jake tensed under the gaze. 

“GUYS!” Nate all but shouted, forcing his way between them. “Can we _focus_ please? We’re the oldest Rangers left, we need to be responsible and set a good example!” 

They both turned to glare at him. 

“It isn’t always about-”

“Leave it to you to be preoccupied with-” 

They stopped when they realized they were more or less saying the same thing, brows furrowing at each other. 

“Look,” Nate sighed, scrubbing at his brow. “We need to figure this out. We have promoted cadets with more battle experience than seasoned Rangers and the PPDC is breathing down our necks to get this ‘Dome in order before the Marshal arrives.” 

“They gave you your credentials back?” Burke said, turning his gaze back on Jake who shrugged. 

“It’s not like I _asked_. But we’re the same rank now, and there isn’t really anything any of us can do about it, now is there?” Jake smiled at him. “Besides, I thought you retired.” 

His remark rankled Burke enough, Nate could feel it in his own body. 

“I’m on reserve. Or I _was_ until Kaiju popped back up. That and the whole drone incident more or less killed any options I had that weren’t this.” 

Two sets of dark eyes seemed to zero in on the way Nate was rubbing his arms. He paused in the act, looking from one to the other. They met one another’s eyes before looking at him again. Nate tried his best not to squirm uncomfortably. 

Picking up a pad, Nate tried to busy himself with going over the files of the youngest Academy graduated Rangers in years. 

“Antsy?” 

He looked up at the question and realized his knee had been jiggling. 

“You know, this begs the question,” Burke began and Jake nodded like they’d drifted. 

“What?” Nate asked when neither finished the thought. 

“Come on Nate, you’re smarter than that,” Jake pointed out. 

Nate blinked at them. Yes, yes he damn well was. And he was also a lot smarter than they gave him credit for because he wasn’t fucking touching that topic with a hundred foot pole. 

“We’re going to have to figure out what to do with Ilya while Suresh recovers,” he said instead, redirecting his gaze to the pad once more. 

“You’re doing it again,” Burke sighed. 

Nate didn’t dignify the comment with a response. 

“So he’s still got that stick firmly lodged, huh?” Jake commented, leaning back into the table. 

“Looks like,” Burke replied. “Though I’ll admit, I figured you’d have taken care of that by now.” 

“To be fair, we _were_ interrupted by Kaiju.”

“I’m standing right here,” Nate shot back. 

“Yeah, see, that’s the problem.” Nate looked up as the pad was yanked out of his hands. His eyes met Jake’s but he couldn’t seem to figure out what it was the other man was trying to say. 

Burke heaved a sigh. “I swear to God, Lambert. You can’t even read the mile markers.” 

Jake turned to look back at Burke, his hand gesturing in a way that seemed to encompass all of Nate. “How did this not drive you to drink?”

“Who said it didn’t?! We need to seriously introduce you to the glory of an on-down. They work wonders.” 

Jake hummed thoughtfully, turning around again so he was facing Nate once more. 

“Made best friends with my right hand,” Burke continued. “Sorriest state of affairs in my entire life, and that’s including puberty during the war.”

Jake chuckled softly. “Is he any fun when he’s drunk?”

“I fucking wish. He’s a moody bitch.” 

“Still standing **_right here_** ,” Nate reminded them. 

“And still a world class idiot,” Burke replied. 

“Don’t you even get _jealous_?” Jake asked. 

“Is that a legitimate question?” Nate replied. 

“Not in the way you think it is, clearly,” Burke snapped. 

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?!” 

“You want to know why I left, Nate?” he asked, calm as anything. Nate took a mental step back. “Why I _really_ left?” 

“You didn’t believe in this the way I did,” Nate replied, feeling cornered all of a sudden. 

Jake’s hand reached for his shoulder, giving him a light squeeze. 

“That’s true. And maybe it was a driving force for my leaving, but that wasn’t why we were struggling.” 

Every nerve ending in his arm seemed to come alive as Jake’s hand slid down his arm, then back up. Long, slow strokes Nate was pretty sure were meant to comfort him, but seemed to be doing anything but. 

“Then _why_?!” Nate found himself replying, far more brokenly than he’d have liked to ever admit. “Why did you _leave me_?!”

They both gave him the dignity of meeting his eyes. 

“You won’t open up, Nate,” Jake said softly. 

“I wanted you so much and all you could do was push me away,” Burke added. “Sometimes you’d look at me, and I’d think maybe, just maybe you were coming around, considering it. But, no...you never even gave me the time of day. You were so busy worrying that I’d find some fault in you and leave, you never bothered to wonder why I wanted to _stay_.”

“I didn’t leave you on purpose. Dad kicked me out for the stunt I pulled, then forbade me from contacting you because he thought I’d drag you down with me and he didn’t want you to fall too. Mako introduced you to Joseph and here we are.” He shrugged. 

Nate rubbed at his eyes, because he was fairly certain he was having some sort of mental break. 

Burke made a disgusted noise. “Don’t use my name, Pentecost, it insults me.” 

Jake laughed softly. “I’ll stop calling you _Joseph_ when you learn to call me Jake. Or...I suppose I could pick a nickname for you. Joe. Joey. Jose.” 

Burke crossed the room and grabbed Jake by the shirt, his dogtags jangling in the taller man’s grip. “What’s the fastest way to shut you up?!”

“Thought that’d pretty much be obvious, mate.” 

Burke sighed heavily and shook his head. “It’s not the worst idea,” he conceded. “Especially if it jump starts this moron.” And before Nate could protest, Burke was leaning in and...Okay, yeah actually, Nate hadn’t given that much thought really, holy shit. 

Given that Jake and Burke were both far more expressively passionate people, it didn’t take them long to be rutting up against each other and yanking at clothes. Burke was in uniform and Jake wasn’t and that was just so them it didn’t even register as an issue in Nate’s otherwise extremely compartmentalized brain. 

A brain that was quickly stalling. Reflexes kicked in and he turned quickly, only to be caught by two hands. He was yanked back into their embrace, dragged between them. 

“Nate, if you don’t actually want this, you’re going to have to say no and you’re going to have to say it right the fuck now,” Burke rasped. “Because otherwise...Jesus, the things I want to do to you…” 

“Think we broke him,” Jake commented with a smirk. “Nate?” Normally, Jake would snap his fingers in his face or poke him in the brow, but instead of doing either, he pressed a kiss to Nate’s jaw. “Nate?” he tried again, his lips traveling lower. 

Somehow, Nate’s brain managed to reboot enough that he was able to stutter out a shaky response. “ _Fuuuck_...”

“That an invitation?” Burke husked against his ear, hands traveling down his back. “I can still feel you Nate...after everything, I can still _feel_ you. You sure?” 

“Honestly…” Nate managed to choke out between Jake’s mouth mapping out his throat and Burke’s hands smoothing over his muscles like he knew every curve and dip as intimately as his own body. “I have no idea what the fuck is going on, but I sure as hell have no intention of saying no.” 

They both pulled away at that and Nate tried unsuccessfully to smother the bereft sound that leapt immediately into his throat. 

“Seriously?” Jake replied, their eyes locking. “You don’t get it? Like at all?” 

“Fucking Christ,” Burke said from behind them. “I swear to God Nate, you are the densest motherfucker I have ever known.” 

“What?!” Nate defended. Jake’s hands intercepted his arms from crossing, smoothing down them again and Burke yanked him close by the waist suddenly. Jake followed the motion too smoothly for it to be chance. 

“I was in your head five minutes and I knew everything I needed to know about him,” Jake said, chin jerking at Burke behind Nate. “It took us half an hour to get him to your room. Honestly, I thought that’d be enough.” 

“You _helped_ \-- But, I thought…” 

“We wanted to see how you’d react.” Jake shrugged. 

“Life or death situations tend to make people re-evaluate their lives, but we should have known you’d be as stubborn as ever,” Burke continued. 

“Okay, let me just get one thing straight.” Jake held up a finger. “You have no idea why we’d both want to suddenly jump you in the war room, but you don’t actually have anything against sex in the war room?” 

Nate shook his head. 

Jake and Burke met eyes over his shoulder. 

“Maybe there’s some hope for you after all,” Burke commented, hands sliding over the growing bulge in Nate’s pants. 

As Nate gasped and dropped back into him, Jake gave him a smile he’d never really seen before and dropped slowly to his knees. 

 

If none of the younger Rangers would look any of them in the eye during their next meeting, Nate tried not to dwell on it. After all, he’d been pretty certain he’d heard the door at least once, but he’d been so wrapped up in Jake and Burke’s private lesson that he hadn’t given it any real thought. Not that either had given him much chance to since then. Burke more than had the glare down if anyone looked like they might be trying to build up to something unprofessional and Jake had eyes and ears everywhere. As for Nate, well...Every curse could be lifted, as it turned out. He was more than enjoying his newfound freedom. And if it meant they’d need to be altering their Jaeger’s piloting format, well then, so be it.


End file.
